Okay, so Facebook ads! Hooray! You love them, am I right?
Wait. No? You don’t love them?
That’s a crying shame, sir or madam.
Facebook ads are the most underappreciated and undervalued pieces of marketing out there. Doesn’t matter what you’ve heard about them. I know this about you, because you still check Facebook more than you check any other website. Facebook ads are undervalued, because after passing 2 billion users this year, they’ve gone ahead invested more and more money into their ads platform to ensure that it runs efficiently for its advertisers. Even if you decide to hire someone else to do your ads on your behalf, you should take a few hours to learn the basics and maybe teach your Facebook ads rep a thing or two.
What if I told you that you could advertise private events for your restaurant with Facebook Ads by only spending $3 per ad per day? And similar $3 per day ads have yielded one restaurant I work with on average of $6,800 per month Yes, now I have your attention, don’t I Mr./Ms. Facebook ads doubter?
Before you learned about advertising with Facebook Ads for your restaurant catering and private events, you were all…
And now that you know there exists a way to get ridiculous returns on Facebook ads for not much money at all, you’re all…
So let's break it down. Here’s my secret to winning more private events for your restaurant. Like the whole enchilada. (Do people really still say that? Just me? Hmm...) Ready?
Edit: I decided I didn't want to write a book tonight, so instead, I'm going to break this monster of a topic up into about 4 or 18 different posts. I'll just make a new one every day until I decide that I don't want to write anymore.
Okay…
Step 1. Create a simple landing page. Luckily, there are literally dozens of great tools out there to create landing pages for your restaurant’s website. I’m assuming you already have a website. And I’m assuming that because you’re reading this, you probably have a couple skills at setting up a website. (If you don’t, don’t sweat it. We’ll cover that at another time.)
Why is a landing page important instead of just having people click over to your website and fill out a contact form? Because you want to track those visits as you go. You’ll be able to prove that people are coming from your Facebook ads to your landing page. You want to track your marketing dollars, right?
1a. RESEARCH. What I like to do is figure out from the restaurant owner which private events are easiest to book and manage and which ones create the best return. From my experience, these are usually company holiday parties, baby showers, wedding bridal showers and wedding rehearsal dinners. Once I determine which private events are the ones that they’re looking to promote, I do a few things:
- Gather photos: Grab as many relevant photos related to the specific event as possible. Go through the restaurant’s instagram account, Facebook page, and have them zip you over as many as you can get your hands on.
- Demographic Information. Get information on the demographics of the people requesting the party. I have a questionaire that I use for this purpose. I try to get as many relevant audience insights as I can from the Facebook Page if I have access to it. This will help you build your page around the audience you are using for this purpose.
1b. Build your landing page. Once you have this information gathered, you can grab a couple ways to make sure your landing pages and ads convert at a higher than average clip.
- Clear headline: Make sure it’s exactly what you said people were clicking over to in your ad. If your ad says “Host your next baby shower at Flo’s Restaurant and Grill” then make sure you have the same title in the landing page.
- Consistent images: Images that match the images in the ads. If your ad has a pregnant lady at a baby shower, make sure the same image is in the landing page. Aim for 4-6
- Easy Contact Form: Make sure people know what they’re signing up for. Try not to give them more than 4 or 5 fields to fill out. Make it as easy as possible so they don’t bounce.
- Testimonials: Put as many testimonials as possible on your page. I don’t know why this is, but for whatever reason, the more testimonials I put up on the landing page, the higher. Just like the other stuff, make sure you’re being consistent. You can put a testimonial about a tasty dinner, but if you’re trying to push private parties for baby showers with Facebook ads, make sure to get a testimonial or two from people who had a good experience at a private party for a baby shower.
You can still rock a pretty decent landing page for your restaurant private events without breaking the bank. I’m going to let Miles Beckler do the honors of discussing how to save thousands of dollars versus ClickFunnels by building a decent page on WordPress. I personally use Squarespace for my restaurant landing page, so if you decide to go with a site like that or Wix, the same principles still apply. However, if you’re working on a budget, wordpress could be your jam. Here’s the formula that Miles uses to determine how much people could save by using Wordpress + Thrive over ClickFunnels:
WordPress + Hosting + Thrive (200,000+ visits/mo) = $328 per year. Clickfunnels up to 20,000 visits/mo = $1164 per year
Step 2: Build Your Facebook Ad for Restaurant Private Events
So let’s break down the research that it takes to get a decent Facebook ad for restaurant private events up and running. Tomorrow we'll actually get into building your ads.
- Determine the targets. Go back to the information gathering phase and use audience insights and client surveys to set up the relevant insights and demographic info. For example, if your campaign and restaurant’s landing page is aimed at restaurant catering and private parties for baby showers, you’ll build your audience interests in a way that
- Facebook Pixel. Install the Facebook Pixel from your ads account to the header of your landing page. You’re going to use this to retarget your ads to your chosen audience, so gathering this info is critical to the success of your campaign.
This is going to be a 4 or 27 part series that will probably be a novel of some sort where I get to play the hero or something similar to stroke my ego. Anyway, stay tuned for tomorrow's segment, which has to do with the whole rest of the enchilada.
(Oh and you could substitute pretty much any industry in there instead of just restaurants... more tomorrow... )